Here is my group project for the course Advanced Data Science in R, where we examined trends in computer science course availability amongst K-12 school districts in Minnesota. We looked at demographic variables from the Census Bureau, ACT score data, and school system finances data to inform our analyses.
Welcome to our final project! We are Macalester College students (class of 2021/2022) from the department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science. We took the course Advanced Data Science in R (STAT 494) during the spring semester of 2021. Below is our final project for this course.
Computer science is a field that is growing rapidly in the United States and around the world today. Industry is constantly releasing advancements in computer science and technology is becoming more ingrained into our daily lives with each passing day. Therefore, with an increase in technology usage, the demand for computer scientists has increased in popularity. Due to this fast-growing field, educational institutions and systems are increasing the amount of computer science courses offered in order to train more future computer scientists.
These increases started at the college level, where majoring in computer science is now becoming a widely available option. At Macalester College, it is one of the largest departments for both students and faculty. While the availability of courses at the college level is a good start, there is a big push to have computer science courses offered in K-12 education. Offering computer science courses in elementary and secondary schools provides an opportunity for kids to expose themselves to coding, potentially leading to younger students discovering new interests and actively engaging with computer science earlier. Oftentimes, being exposed to computer science at a younger age can make students more comfortable with the material and the field later on, which can contribute to a more empowered and diverse set of students entering the workforce or higher education. Given the importance of having computer science courses available in K-12 education, we decided to investigate the availability of computer science courses in K-12 school districts in Minnesota. In this project, we explore the connection between a variety of data sets related to this topic, including K-12 computer science course availability in Minnesota, demographic information from the U.S. census, ACT scores, and school district financial information.
To begin with, let’s explore what computer science course availability already exists in the state of Minnesota for K-12 education. This information comes from the Minnesota State Department of Education, which allows public access to their data. The two plots below show the various public school districts in the state with the amount and variety of computer science courses offered in each district. The computer science categories include Computer Literacy, Management Information Systems, Network Systems, Computer Science/Programming, Media Technology, and Information Support and Services. Across Minnesota the average number of computer science courses available is roughly six, and the average variety of computer science courses is approximately two.
As seen in the first map, the St. Paul Public School District has the most computer science course offerings, with a total of 54 courses. While Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan District and Anoka-Hennepin School District have the next highest course offerings with 45 and 43 courses respectively, the rest of the districts do not top 25 total courses. These school districts are striking compared to the state average of six, as can be seen by the shocking yellow in the middle of a majority black and purple map. There are 86 K-12 school districts that offer no computer science courses. The second map illustrating the variety of computer science courses offered does not show as much of a staggering difference between the school districts. There are 146 school districts that offer one or less computer science course categories, and 176 school districts that offer more than one type of computer science course.
These plotly maps are an interactive tool that both visually and textually show important information. You can hover over a district and a text box will appear with relevant information, making for an easy comparison between districts.
Due to the fact that public schools are funded by property taxes, course availability is usually an intersectional issue that is reliant on other factors, such as redlining and gentrification. We hypothesized that there would be a correlation between course availability and overall wealth and access to resources of each district. In this section, we explore some of the variables that we expected to have a significant relationship with computer science course availability. We retrieved this data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Minnesota State Department of Education.

Now that we have introduced you to our various data sets, we will show you how they connect and investigate if there is a correlation between course availability and demographic variables, ACT scores, and school district funding.
Both maps include the district population and name. The first map examines the total number of computer science courses offered and the second map highlights the number of computer science course categories offered. The first map also includes the median household income, the percentage of the population that identifies as entirely White, and the average ACT score, while the second map includes the total revenue and the total spending per pupil. These maps use plotly, similar to the first section above, so you can use the hover feature to view the variable information.